Camp and Trail eBook

“If he happens to be an old bull, and gits his
mad up, he may do that; it’s as likely as not,”
chimed in Joe Flint, who was listening.

“Well, it there’s a man in Maine who can
be warranted to start a moose, and to follow up his
trail until he gets a sight of him, living or dead,
that man is Herb Heal,” said the doctor.
“And his adventures go ahead of those of any
woodsman up to date. You must get him to tell
you how he swam across a pond at the tail of a bull-moose,
holding with his fingers and teeth to the creature’s
long hair, then got astraddle of its back, and severed
its jugular vein with his hunting-knife. How’s
that! It was the liveliest swim I ever heard
of. But I mustn’t spoil his yarns.
He must tell them himself.

“A fine son of the woods is Herb Heal!”
went on the speaker, with enthusiasm. “I
ran across him first five years ago, when he was trapping
for fur-bearing animals in the dense forests you mentioned
near the foot of Mount Katahdin. He had a partner
with him then, a half-breed Indian, whom woodsmen
called ‘Cross-eyed Chris,’ a willing, plucky,
honest fellow when he was sober. But he loved
fire-water. Let him once taste spirits, or smell
them, and he went clean crazy. He did a dog’s
trick to Herb,—­stole all his furs and savings,
with a splendid pair of moose antlers, while he was
away from camp one day, and skipped out of the State.
Herb swore he’d shoot him. But I don’t
think he has ever come across him since. And
if he should, he wouldn’t stick to his threat.
He’s not built that way.”

There was a general hum of interest over this story,
which even Cyrus had not heard before.

“Now, how are you going to reach your camp on
Millinokett Lake?” asked Dr. Phil, when the
buzz had subsided. “That’s the next
question.”

“We intend to tramp the entire distance by easy
stages, and get there about the middle of October,”
answered young Garst for himself and his comrades.
“Uncle Eb will go along with us as guide; and
he’ll supply a tent, so that we can rest for
two or three nights at a time if we choose.”

“Hum!” said the doctor doubtfully, laying
his hand on Dol’s shoulder. “This
youngster oughtn’t to do much tramping for a
few days, Cyrus. That deer-road did up his feet
pretty badly. I’ll be travelling in your
direction myself the day after to-morrow. I want
to visit a farm-settlement within a dozen miles of
the lake, where the farmer has a sickly child, the
only treasure in his log shanty. The mite frets
if Doc doesn’t come to see her once in a while.

“Therefore, I propose that we join forces, and
press forward together. I guess I’ll keep
my nephews out here for a week longer, and take the
responsibility of their missing that time at school.
Now that they have fallen in with your friends, it
would be a shame to separate Young England and Young
America without giving them a chance to get friendly.”

Here Dr. Phil beamed upon the five boys, who, after
one night in the forest, sleeping in a light-hearted
row on the evergreen boughs, with their feet to the
fire, had reached a brotherly intimacy which years
of city life might not have bred.